China

Beijing's air pollution

Blackest day

ON January 12th of last year, in an article in the print edition of The Economist, we reported that the public outcry over Beijing’s atrocious air quality was putting pressure on officials to release more data about more kinds of pollutants. We also noted that Chinese authorities had already embarked on a wide range of strategies to improve air quality, and that they probably deserve more credit than either foreign or domestic critics tend to give them. But we concluded with the sad reality that such work takes decades, and that “Beijing residents will need to wait before seeing improvements.”

On January 12th of this year, Beijing residents got an acrid taste of what that wait might be like, as they suffered a day of astonishingly bad air. Pollution readings went, quite literally, off the charts. Saturday evening saw a reading of 755 on the Air Quality Index (AQI). That index is based on the recently revised standards of the American Environmental Protection Agency (the EPA), which nominally maxes out at 500. For more perspective, consider that any reading above 100 is deemed “unhealthy for sensitive groups” and that anything above 400 is rated “hazardous” for all.

Like many Beijing residents, your correspondent has mobile-phone apps that keep up with the pollution readings. At an otherwise pleasant Saturday-evening meal with friends, he joined his companions in compulsively checking for updates.

Those previously unseen numbers were hard to believe, but they did seem to match up well enough with the noxious soup we could see, smell and taste outside. We are all far more familiar with the specifics of air-quality measurement than we would like to be. Apart from the AQI readings above 700, we were quite struck to see the readings for the smallest and most dangerous sort of particulate matter, called PM 2.5, which can enter deep into the respiratory system. These are named for the size, in microns, of the particles. A reading at a controversial monitoring station run by the American embassy showed a PM 2.5 level of 886 micrograms per cubic metre; Beijing’s own municipal monitoring centre acknowledged readings in excess of 700 micrograms.

For perspective on that set of figures, consider that the guideline values set by the World Health Organisation regard any air with more than 25 micrograms of PM 2.5 per cubic metre as being of unacceptable quality.

Chinese authorities have complained about the American embassy's insistence on independently monitoring—and publicly reporting—Beijing’s air quality. And sometimes much is made of the vast differences between those readings and China’s own official ones, which are often less dire. Indeed, a key feature of one of those mobile-phone apps is the side-by-side comparison of those competing data-sets. (It is of course a bad sign that people here need more than one app to keep up with all this.)

But on a day like Saturday, the discrepancy between official readings and independent ones hardly seemed to matter; you didn't need a weatherman to know which way the ill wind blew. Or failed to blow, as the case may have been. One expert quoted by Chinese media attributed this spike in pollution to a series of windless days that allowed pollutants to accumulate.

But wind can be a problem when it does blow, too. In the outlying provinces that are part of Beijing’s airshed, there is a great deal of heavy industry. Pollution regulations are much harder to enforce there. And, in this colder-than-average winter, people have been burning more coal and wood than usual.

It is likely to be many more Januarys to come before China gets the upper hand on its air-pollution problems. Indeed, as we mentioned last January 12th, after nearly sixty years of trying and a vast amount of progress, the city of Los Angeles has yet to meet America's federal air-quality standards. If there is any consolation to what Beijing had to endure this January 12th, it is that it should lend urgency to the public outcry, and help speed things in the right direction.

The other consolation is that readings like the ones showing now on Monday midday (in the mid 300s, merely “hazardous” and “severely polluted”) feel fine by comparison.

London had this problem in the 1950s, when most homes were heated with coal. Thousands died during the worst of the 'pea-soupers'. The solution was to ban the burning of solid fuel (coal and wood) in urban areas, and the provision of natural gas to residents. Lead-free, low sulphur fuels and catalytic convertors also helped. Result? No more smog.

I often poignantly sigh when I see photos of individuals wearing one-strap-paper masks or surgical masks in areas where air pollution is severe.

Particularly in Beijing where the PM 2.5 level hovered around the “hazardous” level and far beyond at certain days, normal masks has no effect against particles less than 2.5 micrometres.
I am saddened to say that only air-tight masks, alias N95 masks can protect one from harmful air particles invading your internal organs.

"Chinese authorities have complained about the American embassy's insistence on independently monitoring—and publicly reporting—Beijing’s air quality."

Be carefull, it is illegal to privately collect such data and publicize in China. The people should not be informed the truth, but only what the CCP announces. People must sacrifice as usual in order to protect economic growth of China at the cost of the health of the people.

What is happening in Beijing and highlighted happily by western media is just one of the symptoms of the destructive human activity harming the whole planet regardless of where we look.
Nature is destroyed from Northern icecaps to the Australian Great Barrier Reef.
And reason why measures taken by Chinese authorities will not have meaningful affects and why other countries will keep finding "unpleasant surprises" by the continuing present practices is that human hunger for more energy, more production, more consumption is insatiable, and this hunger overrides even health concerns or concerns about a sustainable future.
Simply our whole lifestyle, our whole socio-economic system is based on this illusion of unlimited supplies and expansion, this cancer-like behaviour that originates from the consumerist, profit oriented western society to which lifestyle other countries simply try to catch up.
We will have to change whether we want or not, we live in a global, fully interdependent system, what is poisonous in China today will reach the other side of the globe in some way tomorrow.
The question is if we will change pro-actively, based on understanding and accepting the natural system and its laws around us as binding, or we change grudgingly, by increasing blows and sufferings?

1) Article brings up a problem about inflation/corruption/pollution/repression in China.

2) Chinese commentators point out that the West has similar problems, either now or in the past, while ignoring the original point of the article.

I was born in China and have high hopes for the country, but #2 is just lazy. Just because the pot is calling the kettle black doesn't mean the pot is not in fact black! Supporters of China, instead of attacking the West for every perceived attack, why not actually defend China first?

As a long-time resident of Beijing, I loved the place very much while I lived there. And, indeed, I still do, but this is why I had to leave. I'll be back to visit, I'm sure, but I'm sick of choking all the time.

On a side note, there have been some calls in the comments for more/improved public transportation as a means to combat air pollution from cars. In my experience, Beijing already has quite good public transportation, nearing or excelling that of Chicago or Boston in some areas, but the car problem is deeper than providing alternatives. Unfortunately, for many young Chinese, marriage is impossible unless the husband-to-be owns a car and a house.

This is economic insanity, and speaks very ill for Chinese culture, which I'm usually a champion of here on these boards. In this case, it is cruel, unusual, and stupid for Chinese parents to require that their daughters' suitor possess an automobile (worth at least 10 times the annual income of an average urban Chinese) and a house/apartment (worth at least 45 times the annual income) before the young couple can even start their lives.

Jesus, China, it's like you need another Cultural Revolution or something to get your collective heads out of your collective a*ses regarding what a couple needs to start a successful marriage. Hint: it's not wealth in the top 5% of the nation.

If China can produce clean enough air for the Olympic Games: it CANNOT need decades to provide clean enough air for its residents NOT to have to chock sometimes to death in the Street. Where there is a will there WILL UNQUESTIONABLY be found a QUICK way as in 2008. The technology and capital for extremely rapid air quality improvement are THERE! 2008 showed this absolutely. NO MORE EXCUSES! Clean up!!

Thanks to US embassy's monitoring on these datas showed us the reality in Beijing. Frankly speaking, Chinese government tends to cover as much as possible to let us know anything real. Chinese people are awkard at pointing out any faulty spot of CCP as everybody does not want to be stabbed in the back by the government. Many cases we seen already on the news now, from Tanghui, the mother petitions to the central govern claiming her daughter's being raped by policemen, who got Laojiao( reeducate through labor camp), to Chenguangcheng, the blind barefeet lawyer, a famous dissident already, got house arrested. We are weak at protesting publicly. However, we see quite a contradictory facade of people who are quite buoyant on microblogs. Because, hiding your true identity will protect you from being retorted.And we will continue to do this way, as by far, it turns out to be very effective at piercing pains and get problems fixed or dealt with, though reluctantly and not very fast, but no doubt, faster than ever before when one case might got hung up by corrupted officials intentionally to avoid responsibilities.

Well, much hated already and still hating about these, we love it as it is our country. We expect CCP to grow up quickly and make necessary changes as this is compulsory due to the trend of advancing. War is not what we need and confrontation from the people is only a means to urge a better life for us and our offsprings.

It is quite frankly a ridiculous statement to blame neocolonialism for the current air pollution in Beijing! The Chinese government, which is sensitive about protecting its sovereignty in all matters, has to take responsibility for their own pollution, created in China by Chinese factories. As a rapidly developing economy with its own space program, the Chinese have the technology and the resources to fix this problem. What is missing is the willpower. When you don't rely on the electorate to keep your job, what the people think is of less importance. (maybe some unelected bureaucrats in Brussels have the same ack of concern on some issues for a similar reason?)

1. Make more parks in the city. Beijing is a concrete jungle!
2. Improve public transport. Subways are to few and the building spree has actually slowed down in recent years.
3. Encourage more people to bike rather than drive.
4. Make special bus lanes so the bus is faster than car.

If they can invest hundreds of billions in building a Nuclear Fleet and other Imperial projects, they can put the money into Air Pollution control and retrofitting at the factory and household level NOW! China HAS the resources. It is the POWER FIRST, people last priority and ideology that has to change: FAST!